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As the dust of the trust vote settles down, the Government will have to fulfill promises it made to the new coalition partners which will draw criticism from the opposition (vindicating their allegations of deals within deal). Government may backtrack from some of its promises and can still survive till the next elections. As a result disaffected parties and factions who supported Government switch alliances. Though the nuclear deal goes ahead, Government will find it difficult to sell it as an achievement in a country facing severe power shortages.
Government will have to deal with some tough issues like inflation, agriculture (drought like situation across India), prices of petroleum products etc. and will have to make a fine balance in between populist policies of election year on one hand and some bold economic reforms in the sectors like power, retail, insurance, aviation etc. on the other.

Formation of the third front with Mayawati as the Prime Ministerial candidate, UNPA will aggressively take issues like price hike, Iran – Pakistan – India gas pipeline and implementation of Sacchar committee recommendations. On the other hand if tensions on the Iranian nuclear programme inflate, the Government will be pressurized to cut down its relations with the Iranians and join the sanctions. Mayawati will not miss this opportunity - Will poach Muslim votes of SP in UP and Dalit votes of Congress in a number of states – particularly Maharashtra, Karnataka and Punjab (which will play in the hands of BJP).

To appease DMK, the Government has questioned the existence of the Ram Setu in the Supreme Court and has declared (orally) its intentions to go ahead with the Setusamudram project. If it backtracks from its promise, the DMK may join UNPA and if the Government goes ahead with the project it will be a great help to the BJP – especially in North India where Assembly polls are scheduled in 4 states at the end
As the Trust vote is over – NDA can take on Marxists by forming an alliance with Mamata Banarjee (TMC) in West Bengal where they are facing problems on the issue of state sponsored violence to push economic reforms.

As it appears right now, the Congress will have only a few states where it can hope of remarkable performance and can get reduced to less than 100 seats. That means the main contest will be between the NDA and the UNPA. If BJP can effectively make use of ‘Secular Right Wing Issues’ (issues which will unite Hindus but will not rally Muslims behind Congress) – NDA can get majority in the next elections. It looks more likely taking into consideration the anti incumbency factor and good campaign strategies it has demonstrated in the recent past.

Otherwise there will be a hung assembly – where UNPA will be second largest alliance followed by the UPA. Congress will have to make a tough decision whether to support its arch rival Mayawati as the Prime Minister with outside support from the Marxists or let the UNPA fractionize and indirectly help the NDA to form next Government. I see the first possibility more likely – in which UPA can support UNPA and Mayawati in name of keeping “Communal” forces away….. Such Government (with outside support of Congress and Marxists) can last for a couple of years as it had happened with the third front in the past.